Discover new books and movies

Sep. 5th, 2008

Hey There Bookworms!! ...Just thought you should know, Karin Slaughter's latest mystery novel was released today on audiobook!! Yay! I downloaded to my computer from this cool widget I found on www.zipidee.com/martinmisunderstood.

Aug. 21st, 2008

I found a free audiobook that I wanted to share. I don't have the exact link (sorry) but it's at http://www.audible.com/logo and there's a button or something you can press that says download or something like that.

Anyway, it's from David Sedaris --- if you haven't heard of him, you have to download that short story because he is literally like pee your pants funny. I'm not just saying that either. I may or may not have had an accident. Hahaha. Okay, I didn't but his books are GREAT. Especially the audiobooks because he has such a beautiful reading voice. :)

Mar. 17th, 2007

Mar. 7th, 2007

I wonder if it really spoils a reader's enjoyment when (s)he gets to know that everything will end well in the book (s)he is reading. No details. Just "it will be ok". Personally I don't like pure happy-end stories and would prefer not to waste my time on them. Of course, some of them are great, but life is both sorrowful and beautiful. So, I'd need the "happy end" parameter in FM. It would be great if somebody else could share an opinion on this question.

Mar. 6th, 2007

Now I'm thinking about the real relevance of fictionmenu recommender system. Today's most common recommender algorithm is to select users who liked the same items as you did, and recommend the items they liked. This is how fictionmenu system works today. The idea is that users with similar sets of favorite books/movies have got similar personal characteristics that predictively determine their further choices. It seems to be expedient but I think there's a problem. Any great book or movie comprises a semantic universe where every intelligent person can find very individual things. And if we scan the brains of two different guys who have read the same book, we'll possibly find out that they've read different texts. Even if they both liked the book.

There's another aspect of the problem of the recommender system. Do people follow these recommendations? What if their friends off-line are the only trusted source for book/movie recommendations? Maybe it's more important to maintain search mechanism and browsing interface?

Mar. 4th, 2007

I've made a website where people can help each other to discover new books and movies. It's a community-driven database of capsule plot descriptions. It includes a tree menu, search, ranking system, and recommender system. Though I'm planning to add some more features, you can already use it. The website may look raw and overloaded with links but there's some functionality behind this all.

The idea is that fictionmenu is a community-driven system, so I've made myself stop submitting to avoid the domination of a single user. As soon as the database is filled with the equivalent number of other users' summaries, I will continue submitting mine.

If you find it useful feel free to sign up. Your submissions, comments, and other forms of attention are highly appreciated. Please, don't hesitate to correct my plot summaries if they are unbearable.